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New TuneFox app for banjo, mandolin, and guitar

The most recent upgrade to the Tunefox app not only offers significant improvements to the operation of the tablature offerings, but it is now also available for mandolin and guitar as well as banjo.

Tunefox is available as a free download for iOS devices, and as a web app, with a monthly membership fee to access their growing library of songs, tunes, and licks. $9.99 per month gets you any one of the instrument catalogs, or you can get all three for $19.99/month. A free trial period is enabled so you can check out how it works, and a discounted price is charged if you pay by the year.

Each tab is offered with variations, typically with a simple arrangement for beginners and a more advanced version, often in a different style. For example, banjo pieces will have a basic, Scruggs-style tab and a melodic version to choose between. Banjo tabs generally have some backup suggestions as well, also presented in tab. For guitar and mandolin, a beginner, intermediate, and advanced arrangement can be selected for each tune.

All of the nearly 700 pieces available have a backing track so that you can play along, with the user setting the tempo in the app.

Especially impressive is the audio quality of the playback for the tabs. Co-developer Bennett Sullivan told us at World Of Bluegrass that they sampled every note at every fret on his banjo to ensure accurate representation in the app, and that the same was done for mandolin and guitar.

Also very effective is the application’s lick switcher feature, which allows the user to consider variations in any piece by selecting a measure and looking at optional measures to replace it. This should be extremely useful to beginning players just coming to understand how to substitute licks as the first building block of improvisation.

Bennett demonstrates in this video…

This second video finds Sullivan showing new user how to sign up for the free trial.

New tunes and licks are being added all the time, and will become visible in the web app when they go in.

About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.